


The Light Hidden in the Dark

by DreamingToBelieve



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Bullying, College, F/F, F/M, Family, Friendship, Gen, Immortals, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Past Abuse, Platonic Soulmates, Sad and Happy, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingToBelieve/pseuds/DreamingToBelieve
Summary: Quinn has spent all his younger years alone. Being the small and clearly underweight child made him the perfect target for bullies, because of this blatant seclusion Quinn has never experienced friendship. His trials will come in all shapes and sizes but first, and undoubtedly his greatest trial will be allowing a group of college students into his life.
Kudos: 2





	The Light Hidden in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, I'm a new writer and I would love some feedback. I'm not a consistent writer but I'll try my best to update. Enjoy the story!
> 
> " I love you and that's the beginning and end of everything."  
> -F. Scott Fitzgerald

The man next to Quinn had a particularly loud snore; he had never heard one quite like it. It sounded like a whale and a bear were trying to drown the other one out. Quinn stifled a chuckle and stared out the window as the trees rushed past turning into a blur of green and brown. He closed his eyes as the bus started to lose some of its speed, they were getting closer to his destination and the combination of nerves and excitement were making him nauseous.

The bus soon came to a complete stop and passengers began to disembark. He waited until everyone had gotten off before standing up to grab his duffel bag from the top rack. With both his bags in his hand he maneuvered around the seats, walking carefully, but quickly to get off the bus. As Quinn stepped off the bus it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, the entire ride had been riddled with nerves and what-if questions. Taking that step was like entering a whole new world, he had made it here all on his own power and he was never going back. No matter what anyone else said.

Exhaling one long breath, Quinn looked up at the building standing a few meters ahead. The large block letters declared it Haverford College, the farthest college he could find that had the necessary courses to achieve his goal. He could feel tears start to gather in the corner of his eyes, which caused him to hurriedly duck his head to avoid any waterworks and he quickly moved forward, determined to at least make it to his dorms before he started to cry. It didn’t matter if they were tears of relief, he was a firm believer that it was better to cry where no one else could see. 

Unfortunately, he isn’t the most graceful person in the world. In his hurried walk to get to the student dorms, he ran straight into a group of college students, which caused him to stumble back, dropping his bags, which in turn made his already worn out duffle bag rip at the seams. Spilling all his clothes and other trinkets he had brought with him onto the ground. As he backed up, he could feel eyes on him and when he looked up, he wasn’t surprised to see that his collision had caused the whole group to turn and look at him. Judging from how hot his cheeks were, they were almost certainly a bright cherry red from embarrassment.

Quinn ducked his head and bent down to pick up his clothes, stuffing them in his other bag. He heard a quiet rustling sound and when he chanced a peak he startled when a hand was abruptly thrust into his line of sight. He rose his gaze to see the owner of the hand, surprised to see the group of students kneeling to help him pick up his things. The man directly in front of him had Quinn’s shirt clutched in his hand trying to give it to him. Sheepishly, Quinn grabbed it from him and hastily shoved it into his bag, making sure to avoid direct eye contact.

Everything was quiet as the group picked up Quinn’s clothes, once everything was picked up off the ground, they all stood up with bundles of clothes in their arms. Quinn quickly stood up trying to take a bundle of clothes from the closest woman, however, the man who had handed him his shirt stopped him. “Hey, sorry about that, we probably shouldn’t have been standing directly in the middle of the path,” he said, with a slight chuckle towards the end. Quinn stared at him for a moment before realizing that the man was addressing him, “No I’m sorry! That was entirely my fault, I should have been watching where I was going,” he exclaimed in a loud voice. When he realized how loud he had been he quickly apologized, which the man waved off with a smile, having settled that small matter Quinn once again tried to grab his clothes. However, the woman still refused to give them to him, “Sorry, is there any way I could get my clothes back? I’m in a hurry and I’d like to get to the dorms” Quinn murmured softly.

“Hold on just a moment, there is no way all of your clothes will fit in that tiny bag you have, and your duffle is ripped up,” the man stated with a calm voice. Quinn started to speak but then one of the other men reached out and grabbed the bundle of clothes from the woman he had been trying to take the clothes from. As Quinn watched him do this, he realized that while he had been preoccupied with the man the rest of the group had been carefully folding his clothes and putting them in a bag that he had never seen. He watched with apprehension and dawning realization that they planned to give him that bag to hold his clothes in. Before he could protest one of the women shoved it in his arms and backed up to stand with the rest of the group.  
Quinn blinked slowly at them, he was sure he almost certainly looked like a deer in headlights. He went to speak but one of the men in the back cut him off, “The bags old so don’t worry about returning it, if you’re really worried about it just accept our apology for making you fall over.” They all stared at him and he stared back until he realized that they were waiting for a response. “Oh! Sorry, it truly was my fault I shouldn’t have been looking at the ground” he argued. “But if it makes you feel better, I accept your apology, even if I don’t understand why you are apologizing.” They all looked at him as if he had grown a second head. He gave them a puzzled look, he hadn’t said anything outlandish so there was no reason for them to be looking at him like that.

Quinn looked at them from behind his bangs, when no one said anything else he shrugged and went to walk around them. As he was passing them the first guy who talked to him went to grab his arm, jerking it out of his grasp Quinn turned to look at him raising an eyebrow in question. The man guiltily rubbed the back of his neck and pasted on a crooked smile, “My bad, I didn’t mean to freak you out, we just wanted to introduce ourselves” he looked me in the eye as he said this and gestured towards the rest of the group. Quinn fully turned his body towards the group with the bags clutched to his chest, gesturing for the man to continue.

“Alright so my name is Kyrun Thorne, the woman with her lip pierced is Pearl, Mae is the one with the seashell necklace, and Ascella is the one with a permanently grumpy face” he laughed when the last girl swiped at him with an open hand and danced out of the way, and continued on with his introductions, “The man with a reddish-brown man bun is Frazer, the big buff guy is Ronan, and last but not least we have Malachi, the one with green framed glasses.”

Quinn looked at each person as the man—Kyrun, named them. As each person was introduced, they each waved at him and gave a small smile, the only one who seemed as though they were giving him the cold shoulder was Ronan. Ronan never even looked his way when Kyrun spoke his name, giving Quinn the impression that he was not to be messed with. Quinn swiftly looked back at Kyrun when Ronan turned his head towards him, obviously having felt his stare. He looked up at Kyrun, forgoing eye contact, and stammered out a reply; “My name is Quinn Wells, it’s a pleasure to meet you all” when Quinn finished his sentence, they all gave him quiet but warm greetings.

When no one said anything else Quinn promptly excused himself and hurried on towards the school building, feeling their stares on his back Quinn quickened his pace, slipping inside the building behind another student. Quinn breathed out a sigh of relief when the door closed, creating a barrier between him and the group of young adults. Clutching the bag with his clothes in it he walked towards the desk, standing in line behind a young woman he started picking at the skin around his fingernails to keep himself from fidgeting.

Roughly ten minutes later it was finally Quinn’s turn to get his schedule and dorm room number, quietly giving the receptionist his name, he waited for them to hand him the papers. When the papers finished printing, he gently took them from the receptionist and walked away looking down at the words written on the papers. According to the papers he was in the boy’s dorms, on the east side of the campus room 321. Folding his class schedule and grasping the map in his hand he began his trek to his dorm building, his mind crowded with thoughts of how unusual that group of young adults was.

Quinn wasn’t worried about bumping into them again, it was a big campus and it was unlikely that they would ever see each other again. He wasn’t afraid of them, but he had gotten a strange vibe from them, especially that Kyrun guy. For a second there when they first made eye contact, he could have sworn he saw what almost looked like a protective look cross Kyrun’s face. Which was absurd, he had never met this man in his entire life and therefore there was no reason for him to feel protective. If he had seen anything at all, in all likelihood the protectiveness was directed at his friends. Quinn had gotten the impression that they were all very close to each other in that short amount of time he had spent talking to them. 

It wasn’t long before he entered the boy’s dormitory, he flinched from how loud it was when he opened the door. Quinn walked inside slowly trying to be as invisible as possible, luckily, everyone else was so busy with moving into their room they all virtually ignored him. Nonetheless there were still some people who looked over at him as he walked through the corridor. He decided his best course of action was to just ignore them and try to find his room. He walked quickly but quietly, anxious to find his room and get out of the noisy corridor. The elevator of course was at the opposite end of where he entered, when he reached the elevator, he pushed the arrow pointing up and fiddled with his fingers as he calmly waited for it to reach the bottom.

As he waited for the elevator to reach the first floor a couple young men had joined him in his wait. Unfortunately, they were not content with standing their quietly and had decided to start roughly poking at each other. As they continued poking each other it soon evolved into an all-out shoving fest, one of the men shoved his friend to hard and Quinn didn’t have enough to brace himself before the man was crashing into his small frame, knocking him to ground roughly. Quinn gave a shocked cry when the man collided with him, wincing as he hit the ground. Both men froze when they heard him shout and turned to look at him guiltily, they muttered soft apologies and helped Quinn off the ground brushing him off brusquely. 

Quinn gently extracted himself from them quietly stating that he was fine, thank you. The elevator dinged seconds later, he turned his head and walked in the elevator with the two men following him quietly. He elected to stay in the corner closest to the exit right next to the button panel, Quinn pressed the number three and looked over at the men silently asking what number he should push. The first man raised up five fingers and pushed the correct button for them. Instead of continuing their playful shoving the men instead chose to stand there and converse quietly. Quinn was quite content to stand there and wait for his floor, stepping off as soon as the doors opened in front of him.

The third floor was much quieter than the first, Quinn was secretly glad even if he didn’t show his relief outwardly. He had never been a fan of loud noises, favoring quiet spaces over crowded ones. As he walked towards his room, he noted that although it was quiet there were many dorm rooms with their doors thrown open, curious by nature Quinn cast furtive glances towards those rooms, trying to see if he could maybe get a read on what kind of people, he would be sharing a corridor with. It was when he looked in a third room that he was caught peeking by one of the rooms occupants, the man looked up at Quinn and raised an eyebrow, wordlessly questioning him as to why he was looking in people’s rooms. Quinn flushed mouthing an apology and quickened his pace walking past doors and reaching his room that was situated somewhat in the middle of where the rooms started and ended.

He stood in front of his room and breathed out a couple calming breaths, there was nothing to be nervous about, but his mind just wouldn’t quiet down. He chewed on his lip as he debated with himself on whether he should open the door, logically he knew he would have to eventually but giving himself this small amount of time to breath was necessary. For most people this wasn’t a huge step, for Quinn this was a step towards acceptance and hope. He took a deep breath, straightened his posture and shook out his hands. Looking straight ahead he grasped the door handle and opened the door as if he was ripping off a band-aid, striding confidently into the room. He glanced over his over his shoulder one last time, smiling softly to himself. He hummed quietly and moved further in the room, which was thankfully empty, for the first time since he had stepped off the bus, he wasn’t afraid. He shut the door behind him with a smile, a soft laughing leaving his mouth. He rested his forehead against the store, silent tears sliding down his cheeks, he had done it. There was no going back now, and he couldn’t have been happier.  



End file.
